Laura Hillenbrand’s newest book quickly started getting great word of mouth, so I put it on my very long list of nonfiction. I had not read her previous work, Seabiscuit, although that too hit a cultural nerve. I will now. Unbroken is, quite simply, wonderful. It adds to popular scholarship about Pacific theater POWs in World War II, but also manages to be an amazing story and complete page turner that has something for everyone. 

In a primary way, Unbroken is the biography of Louie Zamperini, an Olympic runner in the thirties, who joined the Army Air Corps in 1942 after war had broken out. Hillenbrand sketches his unique quality of resilience from the time he was two and running out of the house, through his mischievous and defiant adolescence in which he stole pies out of kitchen windows and rang church bells so that they seemed to chime spontaneously. One of four kids in a close Italian-American family, he started running with the encouragement of his older brother, and soon found that he could go very fast. His long stride and natural ability were a focus for his high energy and natural belief in himself. 

After attending USC and outstripping his competition there, Zamperini ended up qualifying for the 1936 Olympics and competed in Berlin with an American group that included the legendary Jesse Owens, meeting Adolf Hitler briefly afterwards. Zamperini considered it his training ground and was looking forward to the 1940 Olympics, which were called off when war broke out in Europe. He re-focused and joined the Army Air Corps in 1941. After training, he soon became an officer and bombardier on a B-24 Liberator, a bomber named Super Man, with a tight and focused crew that went to Hickam Field in Hawaii after training. There he caroused in off times and became quickly acquainted with the awful realities of war, as their runs over various Pacific islands brought flak and close encounters with Japanese Zero fighters. Many other bombers and friends were shot down or disappeared. After one run in which Super Man was thoroughly honeycombed, he and others were transferred. He ended up assigned to a bomber named the Green Hornet, which had questionable and quirky mechanics. His new crew took off on a search mission for a missing plane and soon ran into engine trouble, which caused them to crash into the blue Pacific and disappear from all public knowledge.

These events, however, comprise only the beginning of Zamperini’s odyssey. I am still digesting its multiple angles. It is a biography, a history, an account of culture clashes, a psychological study, and a story of friendship. It touches on so many topics of interest that I cannot discuss them all here. This depiction describes not only the ebullient Zamperini, but also our human ability and will to survive against terrible odds and circumstances. There are many survival stories out there: one of the best is Nathaniel Philbrick’s work In the Heart of the Sea. This one, however, has the most heart of any I have read. 

From a broader point of view, Unbroken is about America in World War II and our national character as represented by Zamperini and the close friends he made throughout the armed forces. Through Zamperini’s long and difficult trials, Hillenbrand also describes the cruelty and randomness of war, which brings out the best and the worst in human nature. A great story teller who builds suspense out of closely compiled and focused research, she delivers a knock-out book that is compulsive reading. It will inspire you and leave you thinking.

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